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[CCBC-Net] A Few Things About Blogs
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From: Monica Edinger <monicaedinger>
Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2008 08:22:57 -0400
I enjoy tremendously both of J.L. Bell's blogs. The more children's lit related is Oz and Ends (http://ozandends.blogspot.com) where he writes incredibly smart posts on fantasy literature, comics, writing, and various other things. His other blog is Boston 1775 (http://boston1775.blogspot.com) where there are occasional posts on children's books, but mostly he writes fascinating insights into historical research and the revolution.
Just as we each have our own preferences as to how we get our news, so our tastes in blog reading will be equally varied. The ones I like harken back to older media I've enjoyed too. For example: I enjoy the bold face fun of Fuse #8 (Betsy once admitted to me that she wouldn't mind being the "Hedda Hopper" of children's literature blogs), the at-times-snarkily-provocative digs of Read Roger (sort of like Michael Feldman's Whadd'YaKnow? perhaps), the fascinatingly detailed peeks into older books via Collecting Children's Books (make me think of John McPhee's New Yorker pieces), and the incredibly varied material Neil Must-Never-Sleep Gaiman produces (and his feels like a one-man version of Morning Edition). I'm still trying to figure out if there are any literary blogs that resemble Car Talk ---- maybe Editorial Anonymous?
Those of us who do blogs have so many different reasons for doing them. I started mine during my year on the Newbery when it appeared as if I would be limited in any other writing. Ironically, shortly after I started it, I was more in the spotlight than I would have liked as ALSC determined whether those of us on award committees could blog and if so, what. It turned out I could, but I realized that my original thought to write about potential Newbery books was not possible. So I wrote about issues such as sequels, historical fiction, and such instead. It was incredibly helpful to write those posts and have people comment on them. They helped clarify for me
(and hopefully those who read them) what I was looking for in terms of excellence in children's books as defined by the Newbery criteria.
I've been a long time poster here and on a couple of other lists and so another thing the blog has given me is a place to write posts that don't really fit in those environments. Sometimes I just see something (like a recent youtube video about the Wilhelm scream) that isn't children's literature related at all, but fun. As for personal, while I enjoy reading others who do write about home and family, I tend not to; the exceptions being the post I did when my father recently died (the comments were enormously moving) and a couple about the name of my new dog (and the comments for that were helpful too). I also use my blog to write about aspects of my teaching say a lesson about editing the Wikipedia entry of Charlotte's Web, about giving my students their own blogs and what we do with them, about classroom podcasting (say the ones we did for Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!), a series about our work with The Arrival, or our wonderful Alice comics. I aspire for my blog to be a sort of mini-New Yorker (back in the James Thurber, E. B. White, Katherine White, Harold Ross, and Algonquin Round Table days). That is, with short bits, longer ones, and even those wonderful little headlines from small town papers that used to be at the bottom of pages (done by E. B. White, I believe) --- with video and photos instead of the cartoons, that is.
As for reading blogs, I have always been such a media junky that it wasn't hard to add these to my day. I mostly read the children's lit blogs, but there are several others I like too: For popular culture New York Magazine's Vulture can't be beat (http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/). Then there is the smart The New York Times Paper Cuts ( http://papercuts.blogs.nytimes.com/). Two excellent literary blogs I've followed for several years are Maud Newton ( http://maudnewton.com/blog/index.phphttp://maudnewton.com/blog/index.php) and Blog of a Bookslut (http://www.bookslut.com/blog/). All of them occasionally have a post related to children's literature.
CCBC asks, "whether you think blogs are playing a significant role in the critical assessment and understanding of children's and young adult literature today." Absolutely! I think they offer a wonderful place to discuss children's literature in so many different ways.
Monica
Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2008 08:22:57 -0400
I enjoy tremendously both of J.L. Bell's blogs. The more children's lit related is Oz and Ends (http://ozandends.blogspot.com) where he writes incredibly smart posts on fantasy literature, comics, writing, and various other things. His other blog is Boston 1775 (http://boston1775.blogspot.com) where there are occasional posts on children's books, but mostly he writes fascinating insights into historical research and the revolution.
Just as we each have our own preferences as to how we get our news, so our tastes in blog reading will be equally varied. The ones I like harken back to older media I've enjoyed too. For example: I enjoy the bold face fun of Fuse #8 (Betsy once admitted to me that she wouldn't mind being the "Hedda Hopper" of children's literature blogs), the at-times-snarkily-provocative digs of Read Roger (sort of like Michael Feldman's Whadd'YaKnow? perhaps), the fascinatingly detailed peeks into older books via Collecting Children's Books (make me think of John McPhee's New Yorker pieces), and the incredibly varied material Neil Must-Never-Sleep Gaiman produces (and his feels like a one-man version of Morning Edition). I'm still trying to figure out if there are any literary blogs that resemble Car Talk ---- maybe Editorial Anonymous?
Those of us who do blogs have so many different reasons for doing them. I started mine during my year on the Newbery when it appeared as if I would be limited in any other writing. Ironically, shortly after I started it, I was more in the spotlight than I would have liked as ALSC determined whether those of us on award committees could blog and if so, what. It turned out I could, but I realized that my original thought to write about potential Newbery books was not possible. So I wrote about issues such as sequels, historical fiction, and such instead. It was incredibly helpful to write those posts and have people comment on them. They helped clarify for me
(and hopefully those who read them) what I was looking for in terms of excellence in children's books as defined by the Newbery criteria.
I've been a long time poster here and on a couple of other lists and so another thing the blog has given me is a place to write posts that don't really fit in those environments. Sometimes I just see something (like a recent youtube video about the Wilhelm scream) that isn't children's literature related at all, but fun. As for personal, while I enjoy reading others who do write about home and family, I tend not to; the exceptions being the post I did when my father recently died (the comments were enormously moving) and a couple about the name of my new dog (and the comments for that were helpful too). I also use my blog to write about aspects of my teaching say a lesson about editing the Wikipedia entry of Charlotte's Web, about giving my students their own blogs and what we do with them, about classroom podcasting (say the ones we did for Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!), a series about our work with The Arrival, or our wonderful Alice comics. I aspire for my blog to be a sort of mini-New Yorker (back in the James Thurber, E. B. White, Katherine White, Harold Ross, and Algonquin Round Table days). That is, with short bits, longer ones, and even those wonderful little headlines from small town papers that used to be at the bottom of pages (done by E. B. White, I believe) --- with video and photos instead of the cartoons, that is.
As for reading blogs, I have always been such a media junky that it wasn't hard to add these to my day. I mostly read the children's lit blogs, but there are several others I like too: For popular culture New York Magazine's Vulture can't be beat (http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/). Then there is the smart The New York Times Paper Cuts ( http://papercuts.blogs.nytimes.com/). Two excellent literary blogs I've followed for several years are Maud Newton ( http://maudnewton.com/blog/index.phphttp://maudnewton.com/blog/index.php) and Blog of a Bookslut (http://www.bookslut.com/blog/). All of them occasionally have a post related to children's literature.
CCBC asks, "whether you think blogs are playing a significant role in the critical assessment and understanding of children's and young adult literature today." Absolutely! I think they offer a wonderful place to discuss children's literature in so many different ways.
Monica
-- Monica Edinger The Dalton School 108 East 89th Street New York NY 10128 monicaedinger at gmail.com my blog educating alice is at http://medinger.wordpress.comReceived on Thu 10 Jul 2008 07:22:57 AM CDT
